


Goodbye is a Crime

by XaviaAndromedovna



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Dean Winchester, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Psychological Torture, Xanadu fusion, kind of, no beta we go to turbo hell like homos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27636319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XaviaAndromedovna/pseuds/XaviaAndromedovna
Summary: If Dean can't break Cas out of the Empty, he'll just have to come to him.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 9
Kudos: 55





	Goodbye is a Crime

**Author's Note:**

> WHY, why do I still care about Supernatural in 2020, honestly Empty I'm with you, let me go the fuck back to sleep. Welp, I've been fixating on my canonically queer child for the past two weeks and whether or not the writers let Dean reciprocate, I need them to be fucking happy, so here have this. Basically I got "Suspended in Time" from Xanadu stuck in my head and was like huh, Dean in the Empty like the scene where Sonny tries to break Kira out of disco hell, and then I made myself sad. Some of the lines are from the movie.

“It’s not gonna work,” Jack frowns at him. “I barely got him out last time.”

Dean rubs a hand across his face and exhales in frustration. “Well we have to do something.”

“Dean,” Sam says too gently, as he has been ever since Dean told him the full story of what happened, “I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but—”

“Sammy if you even think about saying I should give up, I swear to God—”

“Please don’t swear by me,” Jack interjects either in an attempt at humor or because he doesn’t get the expression. Dean snorts bitterly at the path his life has taken. If not even Jack can save him… “Look I can’t bring him here; the Empty was very eager to keep him specifically until the end of time. And even if it could be reasoned with, we just got the universe back in balance. Cas wouldn’t want us tinkering with that to save him.”

“Yeah well Cas is a self-deprecating asshole and I’ll be damned if he spends eternity thinking I…” Dean trails off, unsure exactly how to say what he needs to say, which he should probably figure out before he tries saying it to Cas himself. But he deserves to hear it first. “He has to know.”

Jack thinks for a second before lighting up. “I can’t bring him here, but maybe I can bring you to him!”

“I’ll take it,” Dean decides without hesitation. “If you can get me there, I’ll figure out the rest.”

Sam eyes him with concern and pity and it sets Dean’s teeth on edge. “Can humans even go to the Empty? What if you can’t get back?”

“Then I don’t come back.” Everyone in the room watching this happen, the family he’s built over decades of life, they all stop in shock. He looks Jack in the eye to avoid the stares from his loved ones. He knows this is desperate, alarming even, but he’s watched everyone else move on the past two weeks and the hole in his heart has only grown with time as he processes just how much he’s actually lost.

“Dean, c’mon—”

He turns to his brother. “What do you want me to do, Sam, huh? Just enjoy retirement or whatever? The universe is saved and everything’s back to normal and all of us get a happy fucking ending except me? Because the only person that can’t just wink back into existence is…” He takes a deep breath. “Look, we’re free now, right? Free to choose whatever the hell we want to do with our lives? I choose this. I choose him.” He somehow manages to say this with confidence and finality instead of the nervous humiliation coursing through him for saying out loud something he’s been frantically running from ever since he first saw an angel in a trench coat. “Either we both live, or we both die, okay? I just… I have to do this Sam, you know I have to do this. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try.”

“I know,” Sam sniffles, the tears he’d been dutifully holding in finally falling. He clears his throat to cover it up. “So this is goodbye, then?”

“I think so.” Dean fixes his gaze on his brother, the boy he practically raised who became his closest ally and the only other person he trusts implicitly. He won’t leave today; he’ll at least give him and everyone else a chance to say goodbye, to say whatever needs said. And then he’s gonna get Cas back if he has to drag his ass here himself.

~~~

“I’ll be able to hear you when you’re ready,” Jack assures him before placing his hands on Dean’s temples. When he opens his eyes, he sees nothing. An overwhelming, absurd, unfathomable nothing. This mortifying absence is where Cas will spend eternity. For the briefest second he panics, wondering just what he’s gotten himself into. He pushes it down like he’s done everything else over the years and focuses on the angel he came to find.

“Cas?” He calls into the Empty. “Cas!” Nothing happens. A lot of nothing. He closes his eyes and prays. “Castiel,” he murmurs. “I know this is a long shot but if you can hear me, I’m in the Empty and I’m here to bust you out. I don’t know how but I will find you, I promise. I just need you to wake up and tell me where you are, man.”

He walks on nothing into nothing shouting Cas’s name with nothing to echo it back. He calls for him until his voice is hoarse and his panic starts to set in at the immensity of nothing. But then, he sees it. A flash of beige.

“Cas!” He calls, sprinting towards the dot in the distance. As he approaches, Castiel turns around in confusion, then elation, then anger.

“Stop it,” Cas growls.

He halts just short of his target. “Cas? Dude, it’s me, I came to get you out.”

“This isn’t funny,” Cas forces through his teeth, looking like he can’t decide whether to yell or cry.

“What—Cas c’mon, man, we gotta go.” He grabs the angel’s hand but it’s yanked away forcefully.

“This is low even for you, Shadow.”

Oh. He thinks Dean is just an illusion. That complicates things. “Cas,” he starts slowly, “I don’t know how to prove it, but it’s really me, okay?”

Cas laughs mirthlessly. “Humans can’t get to the Empty, I’m not _that_ gullible.”

“Well Jack made an exception,” he counters looking him in the eyes. “He doesn’t think he can get you out but he could get me in.”

Cas considers this with a nod of his head and plays along. “That’s plausible, I suppose. Though how he intends to get _you_ out is a wrinkle.”

“Oh no, I’m not leaving. Not without you.”

Cas freezes, face suddenly expressionless. “Don’t do this.” It’s a macabre echo of the last thing Dean said to Cas before he came here.

Dean runs his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Look, I have an idea: if you use me as a vessel, Jack can pull us both out.” Cas raises his eyebrows at that. “I know, it’ll be weird and there’s a lot of things that ideally we’d talk about _before_ sharing a meatsuit, but we can get you a new one later. The point is we have to get moving before the Shadow shows up, okay? So just… get in here. Yes.”

He’s not sure why that’s what does it, but Cas is suddenly beaming and pulling Dean close. “Dean?”

“Hey Cas,” he whispers.

The angel steps back to look at him in disbelief. “What… how did you get here?”

Dean grins with a swagger that is (he realizes while it’s happening) the same one he uses when he’s flirting. “You didn’t think I’d let you get away from me that easily, did you? After all that?”

Cas’s laugh is broken off by a sudden shift in demeanor. He seems terrified. “You have to go back.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Dean says as he grabs Cas’s hand again. He doesn’t pull his away this time. “I’m ready, let’s go!”

“I can’t go with you. You have to get out before it’s too late.”

“Not without you, so stop wasting time and just jump in already.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Dean.”

“He’s right,” a voice says behind him. They turn to face the Shadow, wearing Meg’s face again. “That won’t do anything, seeing as he already has a vessel with him and he still can’t leave.” It moves closer to them and Dean instinctively closes the gap between him and Cas, their sides pressed together. “Now, I don’t know how the actual fuck a human got in here, though I expect Jack has something to do with this.”

“Well I’m here,” Dean retorts defiantly. “And I’m staying, and if you think I’m annoying now you’re gonna hate having me keep you awake for eternity, so either kick us both out or put us to bed.”

The Shadow cackles. “You have no leverage, I can just eject you.”

“Then I’ll keep coming back here until it sticks.” He looks at Cas and he knows the moment of truth has come. “Cas and I love each other.” The audible gasp from Cas as his eyes widen in unbridled hope is more thrilling than Dean can describe but they can figure that out later. He smiles at him then turns to face the Shadow, who seems bored. “Now I don’t know how often that happens in this kind of place, but back on Earth it’s pretty rare.” He faces Cas again, willing him to understand every word. “And I will fight for it until my last breath because I’ve already wasted too much time being scared of it.”

“How touching,” the Shadow replies dryly. “Are you done? Because Castiel is staying and you’re not an angel, and just because you used to be a demon doesn’t mean you can stake a claim here.”

An angel. Suddenly the answer is smacking him in the face. “Jack! Jack can you hear me? Come in here for a second.” Their son, the boy he and Cas (and Sam) raised who grew up to be God, appears with a wave of his hand.

“Hey, are we ready to go?”

“Actually, looks like I’m staying here.”

The Shadow rolls its eyes. “No, he’s not, because for the last time, you’re human.”

“For now.” If the Empty wasn’t silent before, it is now as the surprise of his new plan sinks in. “Jack, when Duma was controlling you, she had you make new angels, right? Out of regular ordinary humans?” Jack glows literally and figuratively as his smile takes over his face and his aura brightens.

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” the Shadow groans.

“Dean, don’t.” Cas grabs his shoulders and looks in his eyes. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yeah, I do. Don’t you get it yet? You _can_ have what you want, you can have me—hell you already have me, have for much longer than I'm comfortable admitting. I couldn’t let you pour your entire heart out and sacrifice yourself to save me, then just go on with my life as if nothing happened. I love you too, dumbass. My happy ending is here, with you.”

“Dean, I—”

“Hey,” he whispers, placing a hand on his cheek. “I’m doing this, Cas. Let me do this for you.” He’s not sure which one of them moves in first, but it hardly matters. The press of Cas’s lips against his is the only thought occupying his mind as decades of fear and self-hatred melt away. Dean should have done this years ago. But it’s okay, because he has forever. He reluctantly pulls away from Cas and faces their son. “Alright, let’s do this.”

“Are you sure?” Jack confirms, walking up to face Dean.

“Yeah kid, I’m sure,” he says, taking him in for the last time. He pulls the boy in for a long-overdue hug. “Thanks for everything.”

Jack releases him with an infectious grin Dean can’t help but mirror. He places his hands on Dean’s temples again and concentrates. The process feels not unlike when Michael took up residence, but the power seems to be emanating from every molecule of every cell, not a separate presence arriving in his body. In a flash, he feels his grace coursing through his veins and his wings on his back. He opens his eyes and the world looks different. Well, the Empty’s still empty, but Jack takes on colors and shapes Dean can’t begin to describe. The Shadow is even more horrifying behind the form it has adopted. And Cas—

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers in awe, taking in the true form of Castiel for the first time. He didn’t think it possible to love him any more than he already did, didn’t think himself capable of containing that much affection, but it fills the newest crevices as soon as they are created and he knows he made the right decision. He launches himself at Cas with an honest-to-god giggle he knows Sam would never let him live down if he heard it. He pulls Cas close and turns to face Jack again. “Thanks Jack.”

“Of course,” he replies with a bittersweet nod. “I’ll miss you both dearly.”

His dads pull him into a hug, a habit from the various times they were human, and before they know it he’s gone.

“FINALLY!” the Shadow bellows. “Can we please go the fuck to sleep now?”

Dean looks at Cas one last time and places a tender kiss on his lips, lets it stand in for all the times he should have kissed him but didn’t and all the millennia they could have been doing this if circumstances were different. “I love you.”

The last thing he’s conscious of is Castiel smiling at him in disbelief. “I love you too.”


End file.
